The Semantic Web: Building a Web of Data
Eric
Miller
W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
The Semantic Web meets eGovernment
AAAI Spring Symposium
Stanford University, California, USA, March 27-29, 2006
Slides
are available at
http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0327-aaai-em/
Semantic Web
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A Web of Data
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Freeing the data from the application that created it
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Enabling Recombinant data - data integration and reuse across
application, organizational, community boundaries
A Problem
Where to stay?
- Hotel location information on web
- Meeting location information on desktop
Useful data on the Web
Representation problem
Common representation - RDF
A benifit of common representation
Useful Data on My Web
Another representation problem
30 sec, ical -> RDF conversion later...
A benifit of common represtation
Power of Recombinant data
How does it work?
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Apply power of URIs to concepts of relational data
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Model real things, not documents or database tables
Leveraging 'Reuseful' Data
- Wrapping, Enhacing the Existing Web
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Exposing data hiding in documents, servers and databases
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Machine Processible data on the Web
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Web Evolution not Revolution
Common semantics - e.g. space and time
And ...
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taking advantage of increasibly available commerical and open source tools
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in this particular case, Simile's Piggy-bank, Solvent and icaltordf.py
Semantic Web Technologies
Semantic Web Standards
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Focus is on Web Evolution
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Web Evolution causing a quiet data revolution
Oracle
"Oracle Database 10g Release 2 is the world's first mainstream commercial database to provide direct and native support for Semantic Web technologies from W3C. Oracle has already enabled many customers in the healthcare, life sciences and government industries to use semantic technologies to create exciting new solutions to real-world problems. Taking advantage of the scalability, security and availability of the Oracle technology, these new semantic capabilities are certain to find wide application in commercial enterprises."
- Ken Jacobs, VP Product Strategy, Oracle.
Vodafone
"The Vodafone Live! service is a 'mobile portal' which provides a
unified user experience and access to content and servers from a
number of providers. Bringing goods closer to the customer increased
sales, and the use of RDF metadata was a key factor in making this
possible. On the Mobile platform, Semantic Web technologies are driving user experiences which touch and enrich millions of people's lives."
- Dan Applequist, Senior Technology Strategist, Vodafone Group Services Limited
Vodaphone Live Mobile Portal
Search application (e.g. ringtone, game, picture) using
RDF
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better search : page views per download decreased 50%
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increased revenue : ringtone up 20% in 2 months
Bringing goods closer to customers increased sales
RDF was key factor in making this possible
|
|
Adobe
"As the leading provider of content creation tools to help people communicate better, adding intelligence to media via metadata was integral to our strategy. We developed Adobe XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) based on W3C's RDF, because it provided a flexible and interoperable framework for fostering the capture, preservation, and interchange of metadata across digital media and workflows. The Adobe Creative Suite provides a design platform that enables creative professional to create information rich assets powered by XMP that can be more effectively repurposed and consumed across multiple media and diverse domains."
- David Burkett, Director of Product Management, Adobe Systems
Adobe's XMP
Adobe's eXtensible Metadata Platform
(XMP)
leverage RDF to enable more effective management of
digital resources
extensible framework for creation,
processing, and interchange of document metadata across
publishing workflows
|
Hendler, Berners-Lee, and Miller,
Integrating applications on the Semantic Web
Journal IEE Japan, 122(10):676-680,
2002.
|
Common Themes
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No "one schema" that can be used for describing
everything
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No "right way" for describing / organizing anything
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Interest -> Desire -> Need for Recombinant Data
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Importance of "Partial Understanding"
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Things change, plan up front for it
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Recognized need to free data from the application that created it
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The value in "as needed" data integration
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Big wins come from many little ones
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The power of links - network effect
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Open-world, open solutions are cost effective
Future work planned
- Exposing data on the Semantic Web: e.g. GRDDL, SPARQL
- Standards for supporting deployment: e.g. SKOS, Vocabulay Managment, RDF/A
- Education and Outreach
- Community work: e.g. Health Care Life Sciences
eGovernment
A fractal tangle of interconnected and interelated data from
various perspectives
- Law
- Policy
- Regulation
- Services
- Security
- Processes
- Best Practices
- Languages
Challenge: Social Demands on Semantic Web Architecture
Enables
- Web of Data
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across boundaries of scale -- personal, group, corporate,
community, global
Requirements
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Security
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High-granularity access control
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Privacy
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Intellectual Property management
Challenge: From Unference to Inference
- URI's for contructs
- owl:sameAs is useful not only because of its formal semantics
- Supporting fast, scalable RDF storage (lifesciences is testing notions of scale)
- Supporting fast, scalable, light weight inferencing: RDFS++, OWL-tiny
- Supporting scalable inferencing
- All points along the spectrul are needed!
Challenge: Content
- Creation
- Annotation
- Exposing existing collections of data
- Relational databases
- Spreadsheets
- LDAP directories
- etc.
Challenge: Persistence and Marketplace
- Goal of providing a marketplace that allows investment in others URIs
- Persistence policies
- Directory Services, search services for terms
- eGovernment oriented ontology directory
Challenge: Social
- Nature of the technology is that it addressees different
communities needs / requirements
- Work underway in application of technlogies in multiple communities
- Lots of lessons learned
- "connecting the dots" - translating lessons / practices across
communities is challenging
Conclusions
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Semantic Web enables a Web of Data
- Impressive vender and open source tools
- Increasing adoption
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More lessons learned, communities of practices to draw from
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Specific eGovernement challenges
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Sharing experiences, needs is important to shaping current
practices future standards
More Information
-
Slides
are available at
http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0327-aaai-em/
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W3C - http://www.w3.org/
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Semantic Web Home
Page - http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
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Me - Eric
Miller, em@w3.org